


a name and a prayer

by mothwrites



Series: tripartite [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Gen, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 12:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8144798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothwrites/pseuds/mothwrites
Summary: Bruce and Rick don't like to talk about it much, but being ripped apart from each other five seconds after meeting kind of messed them up. Peter and Tony don't know how good they've got it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Tripartite series. Everyone has the capacity to have three soulmates; a First (romantic), Second (platonic), and Third (mentor/protégé).

Rick has to find out Bruce’s name from one of the scientists. He’s drawn to her because he can feel that same energy coming off her in waves, watching as she finally gives up on yelling at the armed soldiers who shot at the monster and ends up cross-legged on the floor, crying. It’s _his_ energy. She must be one of his other soulmates.

“I can’t help you,” she says, as he gingerly sits down beside her. They’re surrounded by dust and debris and swathes of ugly red desert. She’s beautiful, and doesn’t belong there. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s his name?” Rick asks. He needs to put a name to this part of his soul, or he’ll go crazy.

Betty Ross – he reads her name from the ID tag on her chest – gulps back a sob and blinks at him wetly. “Bruce.”

 _Bruce._ A third of him glows, warm, inside. He touches his heart.

“I’ll bring him home,” Rick says. “I promise.”

It’s not really that simple. Rick gets a verbal slap in the face for missing curfew – not a real slap, he’s gotten too big for them to dare– but the injustice still stings. He’s _sixteen._ He could get a job now, legally. Leave the care home. Make his own way in the world.

One of the youngest kids knocks on his door just before midnight. “Can’t sleep,” she says.

Rick is caught short with a cigarette in his hand and red, watery eyes. “What do you want me to do about it?” he sighs, but the kids are wise to him now. They know he’s a big softie inside. The girl runs up and onto the bed and wrinkles her nose at the smell of tobacco. Rick won’t smoke around kids, won’t let them get a taste for it like he did, so he stubs it out and opens the window. The girl worms her way under the covers and demands a story.

“What kind of story?” he asks.

The girl shrugs noncommittally. He ends up telling the story of Beauty and the Beast, with a few small changes. Belle is still beautiful, but she’s got bright blue eyes and a white coat and combat boots. The beast is still a monster, but he’s big and green, and he saves the life of a stupid little boy who gets in the way.

“This isn’t a very happy story,” the girl says, affronted.

“I guess it’s not,” Rick says. “But it’s okay. The little boy is going to go and find the monster and bring him home.”

“And then what?”

“Well,” Rick continued, improvising wildly, “Beauty and the Beast get married and live happily ever after.”

“And the little boy?”

“You may as well ask.” Tale finished, he stands up and draws the curtains. “Go on now. Bedtime. Scram.”

The little girl hops off the bed and hugs his legs. “What’s his name?” she asks.

“Who’s?”

“The monster’s.”

That third of him glows again, painfully hot.

“Bruce.”

The next day, he goes back to the test site. All the scientists are packing up, and there are still military personnel hovering around every little movement they make. Betty spots him from afar and drags him off to an abandoned office before anyone can see him.

“I’m leaving town,” Rick says. “I’m sixteen. Legally, they can’t stop me. I don’t even think they’d try.” _Just let them try and stand in my way,_ he thinks.

Betty nods. She’s refreshingly no-nonsense: he can see why Bruce loves her. “Do you have transport?”

“Got a hell of a lot of bus money saved up.”

She tosses him a set of keys. “These are for his bike. If you can steal it from under the general’s nose, it’s yours. Save the money for food.”

Rick grins at her. “Oh, I _like_ you.”

She gives him his jacket too; it’s a beaten -up old denim thing, with a bunch of patches sewn on. Bands he doesn’t know, activism movements he’s never heard of, references he’s too young to understand. He loves it. He leaves that afternoon with Bruce’s hand-me-downs; a jacket, a motorbike. A name and a prayer.

*

He doesn’t even know the kid’s _name._

Bruce could weep for the injustice of it all. He could weep for his hunger, for his poverty, for the cold. He could weep for Betty.

He washes his face in a river, and keeps walking. The river practically taunts him as he walks along: where _is_ he? Miles and miles away from the desert, the red earth of New Mexico. Miles away from his soulmates: _mates,_ plural. God. Talk about bad timing.

A tug at his heart lets him know that his Third is trying to reach him. The kid runs out of steam, or money, after a few months: or maybe he just gets lost. Bruce won’t let himself follow his heartstrings until he finds the boy. Everywhere he goes he leaves death and destruction. But every town he leaves gets a visit from a busker, a handyman, a sixteen-year-old with too much energy and no-one to give it to. The kid keeps a respectful distance, and Bruce is thankful for that.

He prays for the day when he can finally let the kid catch up with him. The day he’ll ask for his name.

He also prays that it won’t come. Bruce couldn’t be a mentor. He just _couldn’t._

*

“I _can’t_ be a mentor,” Tony groans, five years in the future. “Christ, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

Bruce wants to say, ‘ _why can’t you?’_ but bites it back.

“He’s so small,” Tony moans, head in his arms on the steel lab table. “I’m gonna fuck him up so bad. I can’t do this.”

Bruce loves Tony with all his heart, with a deep, primal instinct. Tony is his soulmate. Tony is _fundamental._

He’s also, at this point, driving him to nicotine. “Tony. Love of my life,” he says wearily, “please, _get over yourself._ ”

Tony sits up like he’s been stung. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” His fingers are itching. “You have a Third. You can see him whenever you want to. You have all the resources you could possibly want to keep him safe and healthy. And you know his _name._ I didn’t know Rick’s name for _three years._ ” His breath catches in his throat. “Can you imagine what that’s like?”

Already, Tony is curling protectively around the mere thought of Peter. “No,” he says softly. Tony’s no monster. Peter will never have to chase him over ruined cities and deserts.

“Call him,” Bruce says.

Peter comes over for dinner that night. His and Tony’s relationship has been a lot easier since Tony nearly died flying that mission for the UN, but still, there’s tension. There’s awkward glances and stilted conversation at first, until they ‘get over themselves’ and act like the soulmates they are. By the end of the night Peter is curled up on a cushion by Tony’s feet while Rick sprawls out on the other sofa, and they’re all watching _Star Wars._

Peter winces at a suddenly too-bright, too-loud explosion on screen, and Tony lays a comforting hand on neck, rubbing easy circles into his skin. The screen dims a fraction, and Peter relaxes back against Tony’s knees. Their easy comfort and affection is a warm, bright glow in the room. It can be stifling. Bruce doesn’t let it.

From where he is leaning on the back of the sofa, Bruce self-consciously lays a hand on his Third’s shoulder. Rick looks up in mild surprise.

“Bruce,” he acknowledges, smiling.

“Rick,” Bruce says.

A name and a prayer. It’s all they need. 


End file.
